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Taxi Tales – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

30Apr

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

North West

Taxi Tales – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Wing It Impro and their ensemble team improvise ‘Taxi Tales’, conceived and directed by Mark Smith, inspired by Raymond Carver’s short stories, and Robert Altman’s movie ‘Short Cuts’. We have all been in the back of a taxi on a night out and discussed all manner of things, or even forgotten where we are staying, and the driver drives around until you can remember (that is one of my memories from back in the day!). The team at Wing It Impro have this improvised show off to a fine art, as they examine the premise that anyone can climb into your cab, at any point of their life with their own tale to tell – ‘One Night On The Town’. Photo: Andrew AB Simple staging of chairs with the improvisers facing towards the back of the stage waiting for their turn to either drive the cab...

From Dawn To Dusk – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

30Apr

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

North West

From Dawn To Dusk – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

As we waited for the show to begin, the haunting strumming of a guitar playing ‘The Sound of Silence’ sets the mood for this American mid-West show. ImprompTwo, or Kathy and Joe Rinaldi have a passion for narrative improv, which brings another dimension to the festival. Set at a time when Word War II is over, brother and sister Bobbie (Kathy Rinaldi) and Jack (Joe Rinaldi) are trying to keep the family farm running. Jack sits outside a daybreak, it is his favourite time as the sun starts to rise, and he dreams of a day when everything will come together. Photo: Andrew AB This brother and sister team manage the farm together, but they are under the threat of the Government taking their farm from them, and after their father fought two World Wars, and Jack fought in W...

Neil Curran’s ‘Café Amour’ – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

29Apr

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

North West

Neil Curran’s ‘Café Amour’ – Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Do you date? Do you use dating websites? A look into online dating on the modern world of love and romance. Neil Curran has set the show in a French café so that it doesn’t sound so seedy, searching the audience for someone who is not an improviser to make it feel more authentic. Well done Lucy for volunteering, you are about to be grilled about your dating life. Lucy who is half Manc and half Liverpudlian, has been with James for twelve years, and they met on a dating website, although James prefers to say that they met through friends. The thing that stood out for Lucy on his profile was that he found it funny when old people fall over - ok Lucy, we won’t judge you! Asked about what her opinion on the secret to longevity in a relationship, her...

Jungle of Emotions: Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

29Apr

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

North West

Jungle of Emotions: Liverpool Improvisation Festival – Unity Theatre

Day three of the festival opens with a child friendly episode presented by Peng! Impro, where this improv company aims to help young people to be able to express emotions through laughter. There are opportunities for interaction, so the children feel as though they are collaborating in the telling of the story. In the jungle, this German improv company attempt to re-create the sounds and feel of the jungle by asking the audience for ideas of an animal, and something that the animal can do in its spare time. The suggestions were a monkey, and the monkey’s interest was to philosophize! Mary Gerald (the monkey now has a name), is starting a new life a university in a few weeks’ time, but she doesn’t know what to study, her short list consists of philosophy, and engi...

Embrace and The Bluetones – Liverpool Olympia 120th Anniversary

29Apr

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

NEWS

Embrace and The Bluetones – Liverpool Olympia 120th Anniversary

The venue may look like it’s been ‘cunningly disguised as a series of newsagents’ (or so says The Bluetones’ frontman Mark Morriss). But those stepping through the Olympia’s inconspicuous doors will find a Grade II listed venue full of old theatrical grandeur that, in its lifetime, has played host to circuses with performing animals, bingo nights, boxing matches and shows from the world’s biggest music acts, including (naturally) The Beatles. Tonight’s celebration is a showcase of homegrown British music. Two local bands have been picked to kick the party off. RATS bring ska-punk tinged songs with raspy vocals and rapping. Next up is The Real People, showcasing the best of a classic, Britrock back catalogue that makes clear why, in the early 90s, they were called upon to men...

Soundhouse: A New International – Traverse Theatre

29Apr

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Soundhouse: A New International – Traverse Theatre

What a joy this was! Returning to the Traverse for the first time since 2019, 8-piece Glasgow New Romantic band A New International kick up a storm in front of an appreciative packed house performing hits from their first three albums, a generous few from the soon to be released fourth (later this year) and a couple from the mythical fifth. As a newcomer to their music, it was certainly an eye opener! I enjoyed hearing their early back catalogue particularly History Will Be Ours, the wonderfully toe-tapping, Necrapolitan and the hilarious Trump love song New American, but it was their latest songs, particularly The Girls Sing Country Blue, (dedicated to Auntie Rita) and Flicker, Flicker Firelight, which hit me the hardest and show that this band is still very much on an upward trajector...

Stupid Sexy Poem Show – Traverse Theatre

29Apr

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Stupid Sexy Poem Show – Traverse Theatre

Scottish poet Rosie Jo Hunter took the Traverse theatre by storm with her unabashed, sold out, comedic slam-poetry cabaret. Having previously performed the show at the Edinburgh Fringe as well as in London, this sexy, stupid poem show still holds its freshness, ferocity and impulsivity thanks to the vigour and brazenness of Hunter’s performance. The show is almost crass in its delivery, what with the vulgarity of language and strong sexual content discussed throughout. However, that vulgarity is exactly why Hunter’s show is a success. We as the audience build an idea of Hunter’s character and of the show - it being presented as a cheeky, camp, sometimes touching comedy. Just when we think we have this show figured out, Hunter subverts our expectations throu...

1974 Productions returns to Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre

26Apr

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

1974 Productions returns to Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre

"1974 Productions" returns to Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre this July presenting their first musical collaboration, with "Make Your Mark Productions" presenting I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. With Book and Lyrics by Joe DiPietro and Music by Jimmy Roberts. This celebration of the mating game takes on the truths and myths behind the eternal conundrum known as "the Relationship". Act 1 explores the journey from dating and waiting to love and marriage, while act two reveals the agonies and triumphs of in laws and newborns, trips in the family car and pick-up techniques of the geriatric set. This hilarious musical pays tribute to those who have loved and lost, to those who have fallen on their face and to those who have dared to ask, "what are you doing Saturday night?" Pla...

26Apr

By Kevin EcclestonNo Comments

North West

R.A.W.D / Loo Prov – Unity Theatre

As a part of the Liverpool Imrov Festival this double bill was opened by RAWD, a company of performers of different ages, genders, backgrounds and abilities. They soon had the audience in raptures of delight with some instant and visual sketches. The show starts with the performers asking for suggestions about a possible title for the show and jobs and places as inspiration for the sketches. Suggestions such as a Police Station, the surface of the moon, a dog walker (which brought spontaneous laughter) and bizarrely an ink squeezer in a squid factory. Interpretations were energetic and spontaneous, and much appreciated by this smallish audience in an intimate small theatre. Lasting for about 30 minutes the show consisted of a number of energetic and highly entertaining sketc...

26Apr

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Ben and Imo – Orange Tree Theatre

This is a superb production in all respects. It tells the story of the collaboration between two dominant characters in the world of music in the early 1950s. Benjamin Britten (Ben) at that time the foremost living British composer and Imogen Holst (Imo), the daughter of the renowned composer Gustav Holst. The play started life as a radio play in 2013 and then was adapted by Mark Ravenhill for the RSC premiering at the Swan Theatre in March 2024. It has now transferred to the small, intimate theatre in the round at the Orange Tree in Richmond. Britten has been given the task of composing, in only 9 months, a new opera to be performed at the Coronation Gala of Queen Elizabeth the Second in 1952. He has chosen for his subject the rather unpromising tale of th...